Flexpoint Ben Sensor Foot Sensor and Pill Dispensing and Control Card
The Flexpoint Bend Sensor® has been over-molded with several different materials, including vinyl, urethanes, and silicones with applications like foot sensors and pill dispensing cards.
Foot Function Sensor
During the initial development, the sensor was molded into the insole of a shoe. Given its non-dependence on interactive layers, this is done easily without degrading the sensor.
The current design uses three zones to read the status of the foot.
The zones are under the ball of the foot on the medial and lateral sides and one sensor is under the heel.
The graph shows an individual standing on the toes of one foot.
As shown the lateral and medial parts of the foot are represented by the yellow and magenta lines.
The heel does have a resting resistance but is not loaded by the foot. Notice the unloaded values in the “No load” zones of the graph.
As the loads on the ball of the foot are transferred from side to side the peaks change correspondingly.
As the medial experiences a high load the lateral side is unloaded
The resistance is shown as a function of the digital-to-analog converter and is reported as “counts”. The time interval is 1 second.
Advantages of the Flexpoint Bend Sensor®
- Single-layer construction can be over-molded and is not affected by liquids, dust, dirt, or other particulates.
- The response time of the sensor has been measured to >20KHz. Impacts and other loading scenarios are easily captured.
- Cadence and step count become more accurate than with traditional accelerometer methods.
- Ground contact time, airtime, heel strike/toe strike, pronation, and supination are accurately measured.
- Calibration can be done automatically within the first few steps.
- Additional information is available upon request including I.P. status.
Pill Dispensing and Control Card
The same basic system with very few modifications can be used to track high-value items. Items in hospitals like implantable devices, single-dose medications, or single-use items.
The Flexpoint Bend Sensor® in this application will require a deliberate act to open the cell and this will eliminate false actuations.
The manufacturing of the cards is a simple and easily adaptable process that fits in with current screen-printing manufacturing systems. This will allow very quick scalability and growth.
The pill card is designed to fit into existing pharmaceutical practices so minimal training would be necessary for implementation.
The additional steps will be to add the RFID tag to the card containing encrypted prescription information for use by the doctor and or pharmacist.
The card is a disposable piece while the card reader is reusable.
The card reader is an enclosed circuit board, powered by a battery with the appropriate connections for the card and an RFID reader.
Once the card is inserted into the reader the pharmacy-assigned ID number is read into the system and becomes part of the information sent to a cloud-based database.
Many different methods can be used to transmit data, Bluetooth, LORA, and cell phone networks.
The information can be stored on the card to allow multiple cards to be inserted, read, and tracked without losing which pill cells were popped at the time, and where the pill cells were popped.
Versions could be configured to allow family members to track prescription compliance through a cell phone app.
Patents have been granted for the pill pack as previously described with the single-cell or multiple-cell configurations using the Bend Sensor® technology. A capacitive packaging tape and reader to track shipping and where and when the packages were opened.
For more information President and CEO, Clark Mower clark@flexpoint.com, and Vice President of Engineering, Dave Beck dave@flexpoint.com.
